TRANSFERABILITY OF CAREER CAPITAL ACQUIRED DURING STUDIES ABROAD TO EXPATRIATION CONTEXTS

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UNIVERSITY OF VAASA FACULTY OF BUSINESS STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT

Michael Dorsch

TRANSFERABILITY OF CAREER CAPITAL ACQUIRED DURING STUDIES ABROAD TO EXPATRIATION CONTEXTS

Master’s Thesis in Management International Business

VAASA 2010

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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

TABLES

Table 1: Career Capital'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' %"!

Table 2: Interviewees’ Profiles'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ("!

FIGURES

Figure 1: Two dimensions of boundaryless careers ... 37 Figure 2: Framework of the study... 56 Figure 3: Development of the study’s framework... 57

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UNIVERSITY OF VAASA Faculty of Business Studies

Author: Michael Dorsch

Topic of the Thesis: Transferability of Career Capital Acquired During Studies Abroad to Expatriation Contexts

Supervisor: Vesa Suutari

Degree: Master of Science in Economics and Business Administration

Department: Department of Management

Major Subject: Management

Program: International Business

Year of Entering the University: 2007

Year of Completing the Thesis: 2010 Pages: 99

ABSTRACT

Through increasing globalization the skills needed for success in today’s world differ from those needed only 15 years ago to pursue a successful career. Many companies are searching for employees with international skills and a cosmopolitan and global world-view. Hence, graduates need an education that enables them to compete in global markets, since many of them might work in an international context or even abroad for some time during their career.

Study periods abroad are considered as a possibility to acquire cross-cultural abilities necessary for a successful career in today’s globalised world. Over the past two decades an increasing number of students decided to study in a foreign country. It can be assumed that those former internationally mobile students can benefit from their experience gained during studies abroad and transfer these skills to expatriation contexts. Therefore, the aim of this research is to capture the developmental aspects of such study periods abroad on the career and career capital development of graduates, and the transferability of these skills to expatriation contexts.

A qualitative research design has been chosen for this study to capture a richness of information on the career competencies of former internationally mobile students. Data was collected during ten semi-structured interviews, which were recorded and fully transcribed for analysis.

The main findings of this research suggest that studies abroad have a strong effect on the development of career capital. They increased the participants’

language skills, lead to the acquisition of intercultural competences, and increased their self-confidence. Generally, it seems that studies abroad were an important factor for students to seek for international jobs. When it comes to the transferability of the acquired career capital, mainly so-called soft skills and language skills could be utilized during expatriation. Previous experience of living abroad also facilitated integration.

KEYWORDS: Expatriation, Boundaryless Career, Career Capital, Studies Abroad,

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!" INTRODUCTION

1.1 Research Background

Through increasing globalization the whole world rather than their home country has become the arena of business for many organizations. Regularly operating across geographical borders has become the rule rather than the exception, especially for large companies (Baruch 2004: 211). Having a workforce that is used to operate in foreign cultures is a competitive necessity for organizations (Black & Gregersen 1999). From a career management perspective this means that employees need to manage and to be managed beyond geographical and cultural horizons.

Thus, the skills needed for success in today’s world differ from the skills needed only 15 years ago to pursue a successful career. The increasing internationalization of universities, companies and communities is certainly one of the major developments in the recent past. Career perspectives of (business) graduates seem to be more and more dependent on their cross-cultural ability and their capacity to work in various international contexts in this rapidly globalizing world. International mobility programmes, which include student exchanges, study abroad agreements and internships in foreign countries represent an attempt to internationalize university education (Marcotte, Desroches & Poupart 2007).

Study periods abroad are considered as a possibility to acquire such cross- cultural abilities and its proponents frequently praise studies abroad as a gateway to a brighter professional future. For this reason, an increasing number of students decided to study temporary in another country over the past two decades. Such an experience is viewed as beneficial for the learning process of the students and their growth of competences in aspects like gathering and experiencing field knowledge of the economy, society and culture of the host country of study; successful studies in fields which are literally border-crossing (e.g. International Business); broadening students’ mind and improving

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reflection through contrasting experiences of different countries, different academic cultures etc. and the acquisition of international and intercultural communication techniques, e.g. foreign languages, intercultural communication styles and so on (Bracht, Engel, Janson, Over, Schomburg & Teichler 2006).

Additionally, studies abroad are expected to have a positive impact on the personal development and employability of students. Hence, most institutions of higher education in the industrialized world and supranational organisations like the European Union have reacted to increasing globalization by designing policies and programmes aimed at increasing students’ understanding and awareness of the ideas, cultures, customs and institutions of other nations. In Europe for example, the ERASMUS programme contributed to the cross-border mobility of students. Currently it enables more than 180,000 students to study and work abroad each year (European Union 2010).

In addition to the increasing globalization today’s graduates face a less predictable job market and might have to change jobs and careers up to six times in their lives, and they might retire from jobs that do not even presently exist (Williams 2005). The concept of careers has changed over the past decades.

Careers are becoming less predictable and traditional career concepts are no longer dominant. New forms of career have emerged. Individuals decouple their careers and career planning from organizations since often it is no longer possible for organizations to manage careers on behalf of employees as they used to in the past. That is why a managerial career is increasingly becoming a do-it-yourself project. In most organisations, managers and employees are assuming greater responsibility for planning their career moves and identifying the steps required to achieve them (Allred, Snow & Miles 1996). Career management is more and more the responsibility of each individual and, as a consequence, careers are becoming boundaryless and protean.

Those two new perspectives on careers have emerged and become popular in the organizational literature over the last decades. Whereas the protean career focuses on achieving subjective career success through self-directed vocational behaviour, the boundaryless career focuses on crossing both objective and subjective dimensions of career at multiple levels of analysis, such as

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organisational position, mobility, flexibility, and work environment. At the same time it de-emphasizes reliance on organizational career paths and promotions.

From an organizational perspective, rather than looking for employees with specific training and experience in a single field, many companies are searching for employees with international (communication) skills and a cosmopolitan and global world-view. As a consequence, graduates need an education that provides them with such skills to enable them to compete in a global market with an increasingly educated population (Williams 2005), since many of them might work in an international context or even abroad for some time during their career. Organizations need employees in key roles to function in ease in diverse locations and to communicate and cooperate across cultural, national, and ethnic boundaries to grow on global markets. A part of the staffing to achieve global expansion is accomplished through international expatriate assignments. It can be assumed that former international students can benefit from their experiences gained during studies abroad if they accept such an expatriate assignment or search for work abroad on their own. Hence, organizations should consider this group of employees as a target group for international assignments.

Existing research has explored the impact of international assignments on careers and career capital development. Interest has shifted from the impact of single expatriate assignments (e.g. Antal 2000; Dickmann & Doherty 2008;

Dickmann & Harris 2005; Jokinen, Brewster & Suutari 2008) towards managers pursuing a global career and their career capital (e.g. Suutari & Mäkelä 2007;

Cappellen & Janssens 2008). Even the transferability of career capital from an expatriate assignment to a subsequent one has been in the focus of researchers (Jokinen 2010). However, no research that studied the transferability of career capital acquired during studies abroad to expatriation contexts could be found.

Nevertheless, it can be expected that some of their skills and competences gained during such an experience can be transferred to an expatriation context.

Those are social and interpersonal skills, language skills and cross-cultural abilities. It can also be assumed that a positive experience of living and

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studying abroad can lead to an interest in working abroad, or at least to the wish of working in an international environment to apply the acquired competences in business life and to expand them. Possibly young professionals can additionally benefit from networks and contacts born of social interaction during their studies abroad if they decide to work abroad.

The aim of this study is to capture the developmental aspects of studies abroad and the impact of such study periods on the career and career capital development of graduates. The empirical part of this research will try to find answers to the above-mentioned questions, to capture the developmental aspects of studies abroad, and to gain insight to respondents’ own experience, perceptions and views by applying DeFillippi and Arthur’s (1994) career capital framework consisting of knowing-how, knowing-why, and knowing-whom.

1.2 Research Questions and Objectives

As mentioned above, study periods abroad are considered as a possibility to acquire cross-cultural abilities, international and intercultural abilities and knowledge of the economy, society and culture of a host country. Additionally studies abroad are expected to have a positive impact on the personal development of students and their awareness and understanding of the customs, ideas, cultures and institutions of other nations. Hence, such an experience can be considered invaluable for future professional assignments abroad.

By applying the DeFillippi and Arthur’s (1994) career capital framework this study wants to examine the impact of studies abroad on the development of career capital. The research questions are:

1. What kind of Career Capital could expatriates gain during their studies abroad?

and

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2. Can Career Capital acquired during studies abroad be transferred to expatriation contexts and how can it be utilized in business life?

These questions will be answered by a series of interviews with former internationally mobile students, which have been living abroad as exchange students, participated in double-degree programmes based on university cooperation in two countries, or completed a master’s degree programme in a country which is not their home country. Additionally, at the time of the interviews, all interviewees were on expatriate assignment (either company assigned or self-initiated) or had returned from such an assignment recently.

1.3 Structure of the Thesis

This thesis consists of seven chapters that represent three main blocks: literature review, research methods, and findings and conclusions. The first chapter introduced the topic and the background of this thesis and presented briefly the research background and research questions.

The second chapter is on expatriation in general. After a short introduction to the topic organizational and individual motives towards international mobility will be explained, followed by an overview on the research tradition on expatriation and the single stages of which an expatriate assignment consist:

selection, training, adjustment and integration, failed expatriation, and repatriation.

Chapter three deals with career perspectives. First, traditional career concepts are described, followed by an explanation why and how new career concepts have emerged. Then, two of these new concepts, the protean career and the boundaryless career are presented. Finally, the different aspects of career capital, which are the central point of this thesis, will be introduced.

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The forth chapter provides a review of the existing literature on the development of career capital through international experiences. First, a summary of the benefits of studying abroad will be given, followed by a presentation of the research on career capital acquired during expatriation and the pursuit of a global career and its transferability. Finally, the theoretical framework of the study will be presented at the end of this chapter.

Chapter five explains the chosen research approach and methods, describes the collection and analysis of the data, and evaluates their validity and reliability.

Chapter six presents the findings of this study: It will be shown what kind of career capital formerly internationally mobile students acquired during their studies abroad and to which extend they could transfer this knowledge to expatriation.

The seventh chapter provides a discussion and conclusion of the findings, as well as some suggestions for future research on this topic, and the limitations of this study.

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#" EXPATRIATION

Nowadays, having a workforce that is used to operate in foreign cultures is a competitive necessity for organisations (Black and Gregersen 1999). From a career management perspective this means that employees need to manage and to be managed beyond both geographical and cultural horizons. In this chapter an explanation of why companies send people abroad and why individuals decide to relocate internationally will be given, followed by a short overview on the research tradition of international moves and the different stages they go through prior to and during their assignments.

2.1 Organizational and Individual Motives towards International Mobility

2.1.1 Motives for Organizations

Literature and research distinguish between different reasons for sending personnel abroad. In their classical article Edström and Galbraith (1977) propose that expatriates are used for several reasons that sometimes overlap.

Those are to fill positions that cannot be staffed locally because of a lack of technical or managerial skills, to support management development by enabling high potential managers to acquire international experience, and organizational development referring to control and coordination of international operations through socialization and informal networks.

Developing a common, worldwide organizational culture and to train local managers and technicians (Briscoe 1995: 47) are also motives for the use of expatriates. Especially in an early stage of an organizations’ internationalisation expatriates shall boost the skill levels in international subsidiaries (ibid: 51).

Other researchers differentiate between demand-driven and learning-driven international assignments. The traditional expatriate jobs with the purpose of

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transferring knowledge and managerial skills fit in the first category. But nowadays the focus has shifted towards learning-driven assignments, i.e. on personal career enhancement and/or organisational competence development because there is less demand for filling local skill gaps (Kohonen 2007: 28).

Multi National Enterprises (MNEs) need international experience among their management teams. In order to develop such an experience they move managers to assignments in other countries than their country of origin (Briscoe 1995: 48). Therefore, international assignments are increasingly viewed as an essential part of career progression from a management development perspective (Evans et al. 2002).

But companies do not only send people abroad, quite often they also hire foreigners in their countries of origin. By hiring such so called self-assigned¹ (or self-initiated) expatriates from the outside labour market they have several benefits. Usually self-assigned expatriates are hired as locals in their host country and employed under local compensation principles. Therefore, they have lower levels of compensation than company-assigned expatriates.

Additionally, companies do not have to take responsibility for preparation, training, support, repatriation and career management of such employees, since they decide for themselves when to return to their home country (Biemann &

Andresen 2010). But at the same time this group of employees offers advantages to their organizations such as special technical skills, language skills, and knowledge of their home culture and markets. Hence, they can be valuable employees for the hiring companies.

After having introduced motives of organizations towards international mobility, the next section will give an overview on the motives of individuals to relocate internationally.

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1 From their New Zealanders’ and Australian perspective Inkson et al. use the term Overseas Experience. This research joins Suutari’s and Brewster’s (2000) arguments using the term of self-initiated foreign experiences, as from a European perspective working in other countries without crossing a sea is rather normal. Therefore the term of self-initiated (or self-assigned) expatriate experience seems more suitable.

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2.1.2 Motives for Individuals

The primary motives for individuals for accepting an international assignment are an opportunity to advance vertically in the organisation (Mendenhall, Dunbar & Oddou 1987) and enhanced career prospects (Baruch, Steele and Quantrill 2002). International experience is often seen as important for executive promotion and helps managers to lose the assumption that products or methods that work at home will automatically work in other countries. Briscoe (1995: 51) also mentions that an international assignment helps managers to gain insights into how foreign competitors operate. The skills needed to work in foreign cultures and markets, and to make decisions in the face of the type of ambiguity often faced in an unfamiliar culture, are often seen as precisely those skills needed at the top of multinational corporations. Therefore, many managers decide to accept an expatriate assignment, apply actively for an international relocation within their organization, or search a job abroad on their own initiative outside the boundaries of their current employer.

Such self-initiated (or self-assigned) foreign assignments as a means to develop international working experience got into the focus of researchers in the late 1990s (Inkson, Arthur, Pringle & Barry 1997; Suutari & Brewster 2000; Vance 2005; Jokinen, Brewster & Suutari 2008). With the introduction of free movement of labour within the European Union and the lack of employment opportunities due to increasing unemployment in some European countries in the middle 1990s, searching for career opportunities outside the home country became an alternative for highly skilled and trained individuals (Suutari &

Brewster 2000: 418). Inkson et al. (1997) name four characteristics that differentiate self-assigned expatriation and traditional expatriate assignments:

the source of initiative, goals for the foreign jobs, source of funding, and career type.

In a traditional expatriate assignment, the initiative for going abroad usually comes from an internationally operating company (Inkson et al. 1997). A suitable individual is chosen and send abroad for a temporary assignment to another position in the same company. In a self-initiated expatriate experience,

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as the name implies, the initiative for the international experience comes from the individual itself. In contrast to traditional expatriation, where the goals for the foreign job are the fulfilment of organizational projects, self-assigned expatriates seek cultural experience and geographical exploration, aim for diffuse and unspecified individual development, and may even make short- term career sacrifices and “accept employment in unskilled work in order to facilitate valued non-work experience” (Inkson et al. 1997: 358). According to Inkson and Myers (2003) the major motivations of self-assigned expatriation actions appear to be cultural and social in most cases.

But not only people in the early stage of their career as described by Inkson et al. (1997) aim for self-initiated expatriation. Suutari and Brewster (2000) mention also more experienced people who have chosen an international career are included in this group. Those individuals might work for international organisations, e.g. the United Nations and the EU, or in local organizations without expatriate status. Inkson et al. (1997) write in their article that for overseas experience usually a job is not sought before leaving the home country, only in a minority of cases jobs will be arranged in advance. Suutari and Brewster (2000) argue this assumption is more valid among young, less educated people. Older or more successful people and people with higher education would be more career-driven and obtain better opportunities of finding jobs abroad prior to expatriation. Also those in late careers and with family will be unwilling to go abroad without a job arrangement.

And whilst traditional expatriate assignments are funded by company salary and expenses, self-assigned expatriates use personal savings and casual earnings as a source of funding for their stay abroad. Employment is a means to paying for itself (Inkson & Myers 2003). As mentioned above, they are usually employed under local compensation principles and have lower levels of compensation than expatriates. Suutari and Brewster (2000) discovered additional individual variables in their comparison of self-assigned expatriates and company-assigned expatriates: Self-assigned expatriates are on average slightly younger and contain a higher percentage of females and there also seem to be more singles among self-assigned expatriates than amongst

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company-assigned expatriates. In both groups of their sample a slight majority had no previous international experience.

Inkson et al. (1997) refer to the “boundaryless career” (Arthur & Rousseau, 1996) as career type for self-assigned expatriation (this career concept will be explained in depth in chapter 3.2.2). For this alternative type of expatriation traditional ideas of career management are not relevant, since no company supports their career guidance. Also repatriation is less certain, because self- assigned expatriation typically involves inter-company rather than intra- company job transfers. Self-assigned expatriates are creating their own career after coming back, whereas repatriation programmes and career counselling seem to be common among traditional expatriates.

After having discussed and introduced motives for organizations and individuals to relocate internationally, the next subchapter introduces the research tradition on expatriation and the different stages of an (traditional) expatriate assignment.

2.2 Research Tradition on Expatriation

Traditionally, expatriation has been one of the key topics in international human resource management (HRM) research. According to Evans, Pucik and Barsoux (2002) research on expatriation has its roots in the rapid internationalisation of U.S. companies during the period after World War II and in the 1960s. At that time, the main role of corporate human resource (HR) management was to facilitate the selection of personnel for foreign postings, finding employees familiar with the company’s products, technology, culture and organisation and who had the amenability to the constraints of working and living abroad. Generous financial incentives were often used to persuade people to move abroad. Since many assignments turned out to be unsuccessful, attention shifted towards expatriation failure rates. Ensuring successful overseas assignments became an important issue in the late 1970s due to the

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growing costs of expatriation. In the early 1980s the problems of coordination and control arising from the international growth of companies, and the challenges of expatriation attracted the interest of researchers and most of the research in international HRM at that time was focused on managing expatriates and international assignments. With increasing global competition, the situation changed in the 1990s. It was increasingly perceived that the competitive advantage of a company lies in its abilities to learn across its geographic and other boundaries in order to be successful on a global level.

(Evans et al. 2002: 15 - 25).

This subchapter will follow a similar structure as the research tradition on expatriation. First of all selection criteria for international relocations will be discussed, followed by training contents for successful assignments, and relocation, adjustment and integration issues. Furthermore, reasons for failed expatriation will be introduced, followed by the final step of expatriation:

coming home and reintegrating in the country of origin, so called repatriation.

2.2.1 Selection

Expatriate selection criteria have been studied much, whereas other aspects have not been in the focus of researchers. Technical expertise and domestic track record are usually the most important factors that firms pay attention to (Evans et al. 2002). But often selection processes fail to consider factors like the candidate’s cross-cultural ability or the family’s disposition to live abroad (Black, Gregersen and Mendenhall, 1992). There is academic support providing evidence that stronger efforts should be used by organisations to assess other softer factors (Tung 1981; Scullion 1994). International assignments can be very challenging personally, since the assignees leave their previous life and have to face a variety of challenges such as the inability of speaking the host country’s language, coping with culture shock, the inability to interact effectively with host country nationals, and the like (Caligiuri & Tarique 2006). Expatriates must be able to adjust to their new and often alien environment and, at the same time, deliver their technical and managerial expertise (Briscoe 1995: 53). The

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main difficulty for most expatriates and their spouses and families is the adaptation to the foreign culture. Hence, firms must choose candidates who will be most able to adapt in their new environment and who also possess the necessary expertise needed to get the job done in their host country.

According to Caligiuri and Tarique (2006) three major areas have emerged in the selection of international assignees. Those are individual-level antecedents of international assignee success, process issues for effectively selecting global assignees, and training and development issues for preparing international assignees to live and work in new cultural environments. Individual level antecedents, which should be taken into account in the selection process are personality characteristics, language skills, and prior international experience.

The three key process issues for selecting international assignees in research literature are a realistic preview for the international assignment, self-selection and a proper and systematic candidate assessment, since most international assignee selection usually happens using the most informal methods:

recommendations of peers and supervisors (Harris & Brewster, 1999). Training and development issues for expatriation candidates will be introduced in depth in the next section.

2.2.2 Training

In the beginning of a overseas or foreign assignment expatriates and their families must learn to cope with disruptions to their normal routines and ways of living. The bigger the distance between the parent culture and that of the new country, the bigger the changes and the longer and extensive the training should be. Briscoe (1995: 88) suggests that candidates for expatriation and their families should receive a minimum of training and orientation on topics such as intercultural business skills, culture shock management, life-style adjustment, host-country daily living issues, local customs and etiquette, area studies, repatriation planning, and language learning strategies prior to the assignment in order to facilitate the adjustment process.

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Caligiuri and Tarique (2006) distinguish between international training activities (ITAs) and international development activities (IDAs) in expatriate preparation. ITAs focus on the competencies needed to perform more effectively in a current job, whereas IDAs refer more to the acquisition of competencies needed to perform in future jobs. Some of those various activities are cross-cultural training, pre-departure cross-cultural orientation, diversity training, language training, traditional education in international management, cross-national coaching or mentoring, immersion cultural experience, cross- border global teams, and international assignments.

In general, training and development for international assignees can facilitate successful expatriation and may enhance the learning process of an expatriate and, hence, facilitate cross-cultural interactions and cross-cultural adjustment (Caligiuri, Phillips, Lazarova, Tarique and Bürgi 2001). Such predeparture training can also reduce expatriate failure rates. Tung (1982) found a correlation between candidate selection and training procedures in her study. The more rigorous the types of selection and training procedures were, the lower the failure rate. This is important since expatriate failure is likely to result in cost implications for the organisations concerned (Collings & Scullion 2008: 88).

2.2.3 Relocation, Adjustment and Integration

Any transition or move in a person’s life brings with it a requirement to adjust.

Such adjustment is the outcome of a learning process that enables an individual to be more effective and content in new circumstances (Haslberger 2008: 132).

Expatriates have to adjust to their new job, to interacting with locals, and to the non-working environment (Stroh, Black, Mendenhall and Gregersen 2005). The more different the new environment from the home country, the bigger the need for adjustment.

Much of the research on expatriate adjustment follows the conceptualizations of Black et al. (1991). This conceptualisation distinguishes three facets of adjustment: interaction, general and work adjustment. Interaction adjustment

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refers to speaking, interacting and socializing with host country nationals in- and outside work. General adjustment denotes living conditions in general, such as housing conditions, food, shopping, cost of living, entertainment and healthcare facilities. Work adjustment includes performance standards and expectations, specific job responsibilities and supervisory responsibilities.

Thomas and Lazarova (2006) criticise this framework because of conceptual and measurement limitations.

Other conceptualizations of expatriate adjustment distinguish between psychological and socio-cultural adjustment (Searle and Ward 1990; Ward and Kennedy 1999). Psychological adjustment refers to an expatriate’s emotional well-being and experiences of stress, whereas socio-cultural adjustment denotes the behavioural dimension, indicating the learning of effective social skills.

According to Haslberger (2008: 132) expatriate adjustment is a lasting change in behaviour or behavioural tendencies that originates in relevant past experiences and enables the expatriate to be more effective in the new environment. For this researcher adjustment has three components: it involves behaviour or behavioural tendencies, information processing and memory, and emotions.

Additionally adjustment has an internal and an external component. From an external perspective an expatriate may be regarded as adjusted if the external world perceives him as adjusted. Internally, expatriates can regard themselves as adjusted if he or she reached a level of behavioural effectiveness, knowledge of the host culture, and emotional well-being.

All these conceptualizations have in common that successful adjustment to the host environment is considered as a significant element of expatriate performance (Collings & Scullion 2008: 88). The assumption is that highly adjusted expatriates perform well at work (Bhaskar-Shrinivas, Harrison, Shaffer

& Luk, 2005). Yet, some researchers find that the relationship is weak and sometimes non-existent (Thomas & Lazarova 2006). It should be mentioned that the optimal level of adjustment also depends on the expatriate’s job. If the purpose of the assignment is corporate control, the company would not want the manager to adjust fully to the life in the host country, whereas if the

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purpose is a boundary-spanning activity such as knowledge transfer, enhancing communications, or selling to the local market, dual allegiance is desirable.

On a private level, family problems are one of the most important reasons for adjustment problems. Haslberger (2008: 131) names three possible reasons for this: families have the most difficult time adjusting, families are most likely to press for an early return, and blaming families allows the most important players in the expatriation to save face:

“…If the family takes the blame, the likely damage to the expatriate’s career is minimized. The manager of the expatriate and the human resource department come out fine – the expatriate’s family is not their (prime) responsibility. And finally, the managers who selected the expatriate did not choose an unsuitable candidate.” (Haslberger 2008:

131).

Each family member must adjust to their new life domains abroad such as work or school, shopping and entertainment, making and interacting with friends, general rules of conduct and public order. Haslberger (2008: 142) mentions that children and teenagers often adjust with remarkable speed, gaining fluency in the local language in a matter of months. Children’s successes can also support the parents and make them feel better. It can provide them with useful information, since their offspring may collect important cross-cultural knowledge, which they share with parents. Additionally, children may coach parents in cross- cultural interactions, helping them with ordering at a restaurant or with shopping (Haslberger 2008: 142). If the expatriate and/or his or her family do not manage to adjust to their new environment, expatriation can fail. Reasons for such a scenario will be introduced in the next subchapter.

2.2.4 Failed Expatriation

Failure can be defined as early return, poor performance on assignment and a lack of learning from he international experience (Baruch 2004: 224). Black and Gregersen (1999) argue that a wider definition of failure should include leaving the company after repatriation since many expatriates leave their firms during the first few years after their return. On the other hand, failure from a corporate

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perspective may be a successful career move from the individual perspective (Bonache et al. 2010). But whereas some expatriation literature indicates that failure rates are high, Harzing (1995) found out that this assumption is a persistent myth. Nevertheless, failed expatriate assignments occur and have been in the interest of research.

But what are the reasons for failure? Previous research suggests that the answer does not only depend on company practice, but also on the cultural origin of expatriates. Tung (1982) found that for European and American expatriates the inability of their spouses to adjust was the major constraint. Individual expatriates have the advantage of personal contacts at work, while their spouses and families are often left on their own to discover their new environment and to develop relationships with locals and new social networks, often with little understanding of the culture and the inability to speak the language. This is why expatriates often find adjustment easier and less lonely than their spouses and families (Briscoe 1995: 54). Other factors for Americans were the inability to cope with a larger overseas responsibility. But for Japanese expatriates the larger responsibility was the major reason for failure. The spouse’s difficulties to adjust were only on fifth position on the list of factors for Japanese expatriates. Additional factors in Tung’s study included the level of hospitality of the people in the host country and climatic differences between home and host country, but also religious differences. Expatriation fails as well if the company makes a mistake by assigning a candidate for an international assignment who lacks the necessary technical abilities or motivation to perform under foreign requirements. In such a case the expatriates may be sent home earlier (Briscoe 1995: 56).

To summarize the literature on failed expatriation, one can say that companies do not only have ofto pay attention to the selection and training of expatriates and their spouses and families, but also to the repatriation process in order to avoid early return, poor performance of the candidate abroad, and repatriate turnover, which can all turn out to be costly failure. But irrespective of a failed or successful international assignment, the next step in the expatriate circle is

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repatriation in the home country, which will be introduced in the following section.

2.2.5 Repatriation

Repatriation is the opposite of expatriation. It includes the move of the expatriate back to the parent company and home country from the foreign assignment. Repatriation is often supposed to be easy or to come as a relief because the expatriate is returning home (Kohonen 2007: 31). But for many this move is even more difficult than the original move overseas (Briscoe 1995: 65;

Kohonen 2007: 31) and belongs, according to Baruch (2004: 232), to one of the most neglected aspects of expatriation. Re-entry seems to be especially challenging for expatriates who have been on a long-term assignment (Black et al. 1999; Harvey 1989). Much research suggests that the repatriation element of an international expedition can be fraught with difficulties.

Often colleagues, HR managers and line managers think that expatriates happily return home, in the belief that there is no place like home. In many cases this is a wrong assumption. It is a common experience among expatriates that they cannot utilize their new expertise in their original organisation after repatriation (Stroh, Gregersen & Black, 1998). Additionally people struggle with managerial and direct career issues. Hence, many expatriates experience a reverse culture shock (RCS) upon return (Adler 1981; Black 1992; Baruch et al.

2002).

Baruch (2004: 232) defines RCS as the effect when people are surprised and shocked to encounter a new culture when they return home to what is apparently known territory. In literature and research there are two contradicting hypotheses when it comes to the relevance of the cultural gap or distance between home and host country and the level of RCS. The first hypothesis suggests that the ‘closer’ the cultural differences between the countries, the less RCS impact will be found, since it will be easier to return to a culture after working and living in a relatively similar culture. The other

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hypothesis suggests the opposite: the ‘closer’ the cultural differences between the home country and the host country, the more RCS impact will be found (cp.

Baruch 2004: 234).

A reverse culture shock can be a result of several sets of changes. First of all, in many cases expatriates and their families have a high standard of living in the host country, often higher than at home because of the compensation practices of most MNEs: they reward their expatriates quite well (Briscoe 1995: 65).

Therefore, coming back to the old standards and readjusting can be difficult.

People must relearn their original cultural and life style, but probably view it differently than before the assignment.

Additionally, expatriates change during their assignments. Many find that both, the country and the company remained the same, whereas they had moved forward. Living in another country for a number of years will most probably change their views and ways of thinking in subtle ways (Haslberger 2008: 143).

Therefore, some expatriates may experience a gap between themselves and their friends or fellow citizens and find that aspects of their cultural identity have changed. In terms of cultural differences, people learned during their assignments how things can be done differently, or sometimes better. They gain an understanding of people in another culture. The more they have absorbed the perspectives of the host culture, the more difficult it is to readjust back home (Tung 1998: 137).

In business life, an assignment gives people an invaluable experience, since many of them are given greater responsibilities than they had before, possibly as head of an operation, having to make strategic decisions. Returning to the home country often implies a downward shift in repatriates’ status. From a senior work role in a foreign subsidiary, where they are a ‘big fish in a small pond’ they move back to their home country where they are a ‘small fish in a big pond’. A lot of expatriates also think they have seen better working practises during their assignment. When they are trying to persuade their colleagues to adopt such practices they will face difficulties and resistance and might make themselves unpopular during this process. Hence, many

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expatriates feel that the experience they gained abroad is not appreciated after turning home.

But likewise the company itself may change while the expatriate is away (Baruch 2004: 232). There might be a collapse or disappearance of the company (e.g. bankruptcy, merger or acquisition). In such a case the expatriate returns to an entirely different company. Restructuring, downsizing, change of market niche etc. can also have a strong impact and change the career system to which an expatriate might have been hoping or preparing to return.

According to Stahl and Cerdin (2004) repatriation is the area of highest dissatisfaction of expatriates with respect to organisational policies. There is evidence in research that 10-25% of expatriates leave their company within one year of repatriation (Black 1992). This percentage is notable higher than for equivalent non-expatriates (Black & Gregersen 1999). On a longer term, between one-quarter and one-third of repatriates leave their companies during the first two years after returning (Suutari & Brewster 2003). The expectations of expatriates seem to play an important role in this turnover. They expect the return to enhance their career prospects (Tung 1998; Suutari & Brewster 2003).

Thus repatriates form a set of work related expectations, including the position after repatriation and longer-term career prospects (Doherty, Brewster, Suutari

& Dickmann 2008: 177). Typically they want to be rewarded with high-level jobs and expect opportunities to utilize their skills acquired abroad.

Therefore, managing the expectations of repatriates should already start during the pre-assignment stage where organisational goals and individual aspirations need to be informed, formed and integrated (ibid: 178). Former international assignees whose expectations are met report the highest level of repatriation adjustment and job performance (Black 1992). If returnees are dissatisfied because their expectations remain unmet, they work inefficiently and are likely to leave the organisation (Forster 1994). Worse, from an organisational viewpoint, is the fact that people often do not change sectors if they leave the company. So the repatriates do not only leave the company that spent a lot of money for their assignment, but they are even likely to join the competition

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(Doherty et al. 2008: 181). Because of this job dissatisfaction leading to high turnover rates after repatriation, international careers are often described as prototypes of new perspectives on careers, the protean and the boundaryless career. These concepts will be introduced and presented in Chapter 3 of this thesis.

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$" CAREER PERSPECTIVES

Traditionally, careers haven been described as the sequence of employment- related positions, roles, activities and experiences encountered by a person.

They contain a wide range of sequences of occupational experiences, do not necessarily involve promotion, and may cross organizational boundaries (Arnold 1997).

According to Hall (2002: 8-10) there are four distinct meanings of the term career in literature. The first meaning considers career as advancement. Careers are seen as vertically mobile and employees move upward in an organization’s hierarchy. A career consists of the sequence of promotions and upward moves in a work-related hierarchy during the course of an individual’s work life.

Advancing by changing occupations is possible. The second view considers careers as a profession: certain occupations are representing careers, whereas others do not. Career occupations are those in which patterns of systematic advancement is evident. In contrast to that, professions that do not generally lead to advancement are often viewed as not constituting a career. A third meaning sees a career as a lifelong sequence of jobs: In this definition a career are an individual’s series of positions held during work life, regardless of level or occupation. Hence all working people have careers and no value is made about the type of occupation or the direction of movement. The forth meaning considers a career a lifelong sequence of role-related experiences. According to this definition, a career represents the way a person experiences the sequence of jobs and activities that constitute his work history. It is the subjective career as perceived by the individual including changing aspirations, satisfactions, self- conceptions and other attitudes towards work life.

Careers are subjective as well as objective. They comprehend what can be observed objectively as well as people’s interpretation of what happens to them (Arnold 1997). But the concept of careers has changed over the past decades.

Traditional career concepts are no longer dominant and new forms of career have emerged. In the following subchapters, traditional career concepts will be

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explained, followed by reasons for the emergence of new career concepts, and the discussion of two of these new concepts: the protean and the boundaryless career.

3.1 Traditional Careers

In the traditional perspective on careers it has been assumed that people would spend their entire career in the service of one, or very few organizations. Even if this was not the case, it was the desirable development (Baruch 2004 b). During the economic boom after World War II, organizations tried to build stable, expert and long-term workforces by developing career planning systems and incentives for valued personnel to demonstrate career long loyalty and to keep retention rates low.

In this old career concept, managers and employees had to accommodate to organisational objectives and processes to achieve their career goals (Banai &

Harry 2004). Building a successful career meant doing what the firm wanted, and getting ahead meant being grateful for opportunities offered by the organisation (Arthur & Rousseau 1996: 3). In return employees were rewarded in pay, promotion and status dependent on loyalty to the organisation. This also inhibited them from changing their employers. Therefore, managers developed organisation-specific skills over the years of their employment.

When they needed to acquire new skills and knowledge, they had to negotiate with their employers to be assigned to formal training programmes on or off the job (Banai & Harry 2004). This model has led to managers that develop their careers in one or two organisations. Career success was measured by comparing manager’s own progress with the one of others in terms of relative age and seniority (Sullivan 1999).

These traditional careers were based on hierarchical and rigid structures.

Baruch (2004 b) writes that the old career model followed a linear structure in which advancement meant promotion and the organisational hierarchy was the

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ladder to climb on. Career paths were indicated by a stability of structure and clarity of career ladders. They had only one direction: upwards. As long as employees performed according to the rules they progressed until they reached their level of incompetence and their progress stopped (Baruch 2004 b: 62). The career path is set for the manager and it is determined by clear and set guidelines as well as definition of success for each organisational member.

This traditional view on careers has been the dominant employment form through the mid-1980’s (Arthur & Rousseau 1996). It is no longer dominant.

Nowadays, firms can no longer promise and offer lifelong careers. New forms of career have emerged and will be presented in the next section.

3.2 New Career Concepts

The context in which careers happen has changed and is changing. In most Western countries the composition of the workforce is changing. Societies are becoming more ethnically and culturally varied, the average age of the workforce is increasing, and the number of men and women in the labour market are almost equal (Arnold 1997: 1). On average, people are less secure in their jobs and certainly feel more insecure than it used to be the case. Many organisations have reduced the number of people who can be considered core employees – workforce with medium- or long-term contracts. It is more and more common to use outside contractors for highly specialised technical or managerial tasks with a limited duration (Arnold 1997: 1).

This is why careers are becoming less predictable. Nowadays, they involve more frequent changes of job, employer and skill requirements. Additionally, there is more need for (re-)education and (re-)training, also known as lifelong learning. Many organisations have responded to change by explaining that it is no longer possible to manage careers on behalf of employees as they used to in the past. Hence, the traditional career contract, with its promises of a long-term employment relationship and security, has been replaced by a shorter-term

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transactional understanding: “The contract is renewable daily based on current needs and performance” (Hall 2002: 4).

Hence, a managerial career is increasingly becoming a do-it-yourself project. In most organisations, managers and employees are assuming greater responsibility for planning their career moves and identifying the steps required to achieve them (Allred, Snow & Miles 1996). Career management is more and more the responsibility of the individual.

Along with these changes, two new perspectives on careers have emerged and become popular in the organizational literature over the last decade: the protean career and the boundaryless career. Whereas the protean career focuses on achieving subjective career success through self-directed vocational behaviour, the boundaryless career focuses on crossing both objective and subjective dimensions of career at multiple levels of analysis, such as organisational position, mobility, flexibility, and work environment. At the same time it de-emphasizes reliance on organizational career paths and promotions. (Briscoe, Hall & Frautschy DeMuth 2006: 30). These two perspectives on careers will be introduced in the following sections.

3.2.1 Protean Careers

The concept of the protean career was developed by Hall (1976, 1996, 2002). The term protean is taken from the name of the Greek god Proteus, who could change his shape at will. Hall describes this new type of career as a process, which the person, not the organisation, is managing, and that will be reinvented by the person from time to time, as the person and the environment change.

“It consists of all the person’s varied experience in education, training, work in several organisations, changes in occupational field, etc … The protean person’s own personal career choices and search for self- fulfilment are the unifying or integrative elements in his or her life.” (Hall 1976: 201)

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Hence, individuals adjust to changing circumstances by rapidly changing their shape and the protean career is a contract with oneself, rather than with the organisation. This changes the relationship between employee and organisation. Hall and Mirvis (1996) and Baruch (2004 b) see the protean career as new form, in which the individual, and not the organization, takes responsibility for transforming their career path according to will and inclinations. In contrast to the traditional career models, the individual does not leave the responsibility of planning and managing his or her own career to the organisation (Baruch 2004 a: 71). The individual changes himself or herself according to need. Such a career is characterized by frequent change and self- invention, autonomy and self-direction. It is driven by individual needs rather than by those of an organisation (Hall 2002: 4).

Protean careerists are intent upon using their own values (and not e.g.

organizational values) to guide their career and take an independent role in managing their professional behaviour, whereas individuals with traditional career attitudes are more likely to absorb external standards (not internally developed ones) and are more likely to search for external assistance and direction in career management (Briscoe, Hall & Frautschy DeMuth 2006).

Protean careers encompass the whole life space, and are driven by psychological success rather than objective success such as rank, power, or pay (Hall 2002).

Additionally, Briscoe and Hall (2006) define the protean career as a career in which the person is driven by internal values that provide the guidance and measure of career success; and self-directed in personal career management, i.e.

individuals are able to be adaptive in terms of performance and learning demands. In the protean career concept a career consists of different stages.

According to Hall and Mirvis (1996) individuals will have several careers, each of which will comprise the inner stages of exploration, trial, establishment and mastery. However, mastery will follow a new cycle of exploration, ending with the discovery of a new path, a different profession, role or organization.

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The aim of a successful protean career is psychological success, i.e. the feeling of pride and personal accomplishment that derives from achieving one’s important goals in life. There are unlimited ways to achieve this psychological success, since each human has unique needs. The protean career is not measured by chronological age and life stages, but by continuous learning and identity changes; it consists of a series of learning stages. Work challenges and relationships are its sources of development and growth is seen as a process of continuous learning fuelled by a combination of the person, work challenges, and relationships. This is in contrast to the traditional career model, where the only goal is achieving vertical success. (Hall 1996: 8 – 10).

The concept of the boundaryless career differs from the protean career in some ways and will be discussed in the following section.

3.2.2 Boundaryless Careers

The boundaryless career is another perspective for exploring the consequences of increased employment mobility. It offers a further counterpoint to traditional career theory. DeFillipi and Arthur (1994) were one of the first to use this term.

They offer the boundaryless career concept as a career oriented response to the shift from Industrial State to New Economy. If the term “boundaryless career”

is taken literally, it means it is a career either with no limits to the territory into which it can extend, or at least no clear line or boundary marking where those limits are (Inkson 2006). Also because of the above-mentioned increased mobility and decreasing predictability, nowadays almost all careers cross multiple employer boundaries (Arthur, Inkson & Pringle 1999).

For these reasons, boundaryless careers are the opposite of traditional organizational careers, i.e. careers that unfold in a single employment setting (Arthur & Rousseau 1996). Arthur and Rousseau (1996: 6) list “several specific meanings” of the boundaryless career: they move across the boundaries of separate employers; draw validation from outside the present employer; are sustained by external networks of information; break traditional organizational

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career boundaries; reject traditional career opportunities for personal or family reasons; and perceive a boundaryless future regardless of structural constraints.

This new type of career is independent from, rather than dependent on, traditional career arrangements. It involves both objective features such as mobility, and also the subjective attitude of being boundaryless.

In traditional organizational careers given structures, hierarchies, plans, detailed job descriptions, and prescribed relationships provide clear rules and social cues guide behaviour. However, in the pure form of the boundaryless career, such explicit guides do not exist (Littleton, Arthur & Rousseau 2000).

Employment situations are often characterized by ambiguity instead of providing clear guidelines. One of the challenges of this new type of career is that people are open to more stimuli and experiences that make up sense of self, and the integration of this complexity is difficult. The new environment of careers suggests a shift from pre-ordained and linear development to perpetually changing career paths and possibilities (Littleton, Arthur &

Rousseau 2000).

Since there are many different kinds of boundaries, there are also many different kinds of boundary crossing. A boundaryless career involves both objective features, such as mobility, and the subjective attitude of being boundaryless (Inkson 2006). Within organizations, there are departmental, divisional, hierarchical, and often geographical boundaries. Furthermore, there are boundaries between organizations, occupations, industries, as well as work and family. Hence, Sullivan and Arthur (2006) note that boundaryless careers are characterized as psychological and physical movement between “jobs, firms, occupations, countries…”. Those researchers describe the boundaryless career along the dimensions of physical and/or psychological mobility. They classify boundaryless careers into four broad quadrants. In quadrant one careers are considered to be low in both physical and psychological mobility; in quadrant 2 careers are considered to exhibit high physical but low psychological mobility; in quadrant 3 careers exhibit strong psychological but not physical mobility; and in quadrant 4 careers exhibit both physical and psychological mobility.

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Figure 1: Two dimensions of boundaryless careers (Sullivan & Arthur 2006: 22)

But in practise, most adaptors of the boundaryless career model tend to focus on only one specific type of boundary – the boundary around a particular

“employment setting” or company. They see boundaryless careers as inter- organisational careers – the opposite of organizational career, i.e. careers that unfold in a single employment setting.

Various consequences follow these new circumstances. Career actors can draw validation from multiple employment situations, sustain wider inter-company networks, and develop multi-employer arenas of choice for the implementation of their careers (Arthur, Inkson & Pringle 1999).

“The boundaryless career gives us a different yardstick for staying with the same employer, namely because successive accommodations to personal learning and lifestyle agendas rather than because of simple loyalty. This yardstick helps us rethink careers in relation to the dissolution of other traditional boundaries – notably, corporate boundaries of hierarchy and status, occupational, trade, and job boundaries of specialist skill and function, and social boundaries

22 S.E. Sullivan, M.B. Arthur / Journal of Vocational Behavior 69 (2006) 19–29

Suzanne is a middle manager seen by others as plateaued in her present organization.

However, she anticipates a boundaryless future because she sees her skills as market- able (Arthur and Rousseau’s meaning 6). She has not yet crossed physical boundaries between organizations or occupations, but intends to do so.

In addition to measuring complex physical and psychological mobility, how can career changes that represent varying combinations of physical and psychological mobility, and the interdependency between them be measured? Consider the following example:

Cindy happily viewed herself as company accountant until she grew bored with her job. She turned to her professional association for validation of her abilities (Arthur and Rousseau’s meaning 2). This led to new opportunities to provide accounting services that she is now pursuing through a small home-based business. Freed from the constraints her employer once placed on her, she now has a substantial support system outside that employer (Arthur and Rousseau’s meaning 3).

3. A model of boundaryless careers

The growing complexity of the contemporary career landscape, as well as the many inter-connected factors that can inXuence career decisions, make it increasingly challenging for researchers to capture diVerent types of boundaryless career mobility. To respond to this challenge, we suggest a deWnition of a boundaryless career as one that involves physical and/or psychological career mobility. Such a career can be then viewed as characterized by varying levels of physical and psychological mobility. Thus, boundaryless careers can be represented by the model depicted in Fig. 1, with physical

Fig. 1. Two dimensions of boundaryless careers.

Quadrant 3 Quadrant 4 High

Psychological Mobility

Low

Quadrant 1 Quadrant 2

Low High

Physical Mobility

TRANSFERABILITY OF CAREER CAPITAL ACQUIRED DURING STUDIES ABROAD TO EXPATRIATION CONTEXTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

!" INTRODUCTION

#" EXPATRIATION

$" CAREER PERSPECTIVES